Microsoft Assumes Female Gamers Contact Them on Behalf of Their “Sons”

"While gamers of the female gender may be considered a rarer sight than their Y-chromosome-bearing counterparts, it would seem that there are enough of them around that making blind assumptions about a gamer’s identity would be viewed as a bad idea. But apparently, Microsoft disagrees.

This was made evident when “Chantaal” of the blog [Insert Pop Culture Reference] sought to downgrade her Xbox LIVE account from Gold to Silver. To make sure everything was clean and clear, she also contacted Microsoft about having her credit card info removed from their systems, resulting in a customized form letter, which is where the incident occurred:

Hello Chantaal,

Thank you for using XBOX Customer Support online! I am Joyce and I will be helping you today with this issue.

As I understand, when your son tries to sign in to Xbox LIVE, [redacted]

I know how disappointing it is when your son cannot enjoy the Xbox Live service due to this matter.

Adding a little more salt to the wound is that the Xbox Customer Support rep was female herself.

Chantaal notes that she made no reference to her son, given she doesn’t have one, nor did she mention her boyfriend, as he has his own account. And apparently, after bringing this up on Twitter, someone else revealed they had the same experience.

“I know why Xbox would make the assumption,” she says, “but I can’t imagine why they’d go ahead and say it so blatantly in their response when no indicators were given. It’s horrible PR.”

Many would say that when you are dissatisfied with a product, you should let your money do the talking, and that’s the route Chantaal is taking… for the most part. While she would consider canceling her account outright for this indignity, she would rather be able to keep her GamerScore intact. So instead, “no more money for you, Xbox LIVE.”

Which is sort of ironic, given that ceasing payment for Xbox LIVE Gold is where this all began in the first place."